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Journal of Moral Education

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Book reviews
Version of record first published: 28 Nov 2006.

To cite this article: (2006): Book reviews, Journal of Moral Education, 35:4, 595-617 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057240601017575

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Journal of Moral Education Vol. 35, No. 4, December 2006, pp. 595617

BOOK REVIEWS
Citizenship and education in liberal-democratic societies: teaching for cosmopolitan values and collective identities Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg (Eds), 2006 Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press $35.00 (sbk), 464 pp. ISBN 0-19-928399-0
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The genesis of Citizenship and education in liberal democratic societies was a three-day symposium held in 2000. Oxford University Press published the papers from the symposium in a hardbound version in 2003 and a softbound version in 2006. The editors, in their valuable introduction to the book, frame the purpose of the volume by raising the question of whether public education is primarily a source of liberation or oppression.
If the state is viewed as the agent of enlightenment and liberty, then it is necessary to view the public school as its instrument to bring about the emancipation of enslaved peoples the world over. [I]f the liberal state is viewed as the instrument of colonialism and internal oppression, the state supported school is the agent of the hegemonic forces seeking to colonize the life world and to spread the message of consumerism throughout the globe. (pp. 23)

An introduction and fifteen chapters grouped in three sections Cosmopolitanism, Liberalism, and Common Education; Liberalism and Traditional Education; and Liberal Constraints on Traditionalist Education comprise the book. While explicit references to moral education are rare in the chapters, the book is infused with ethical issues and the ethical implications of many educational policies and practices. Teaching morality has one entry in the volumes index. Following the index to K. Anthony Appiahs discussion of moral education in his chapter, Liberal education: the United States example, we find:
As far as the teaching of morality is concerned, all of us plainly have a reason to want children to be taught what we take to be morally true We want our fellow citizens to know what is morally required and what is morally forbidden because we want them to do what they should and abstain from doing what they should not. (p. 70)

This brief quotation, as noted, is not a good measure of the volumes relevance for moral educators nor of the range of issues raised. Appiahs words about teaching morality appear in the context of a broader examination of the issues of human dignity and autonomy, ethical concepts with importance for the governance of a society and the education of its citizens. In the former is the notion, in a US context and foundational documents, of the individuals right to pursue her own happiness (i.e. conception of the good). In any context, but particularly in multicultural and otherwise diverse communities, autonomous choices are made, not in isolation but in social environments. As Appiah summarizes:
ISSN 0305-7240 (print)/ISSN 1465-3877 (online)/06/040595-23 # 2006 Journal of Moral Education Ltd DOI: 10.1080/03057240601017575

596 Book reviews

it is in dialogue with other peoples understandings of who I am that I develop a conception of my own identity. As a result, educating children for autonomy requires preparing them for relationship, not just preparing them to respect, as liberalism requires, the autonomy of others. (p.65)

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In terms of education, all contemporary liberal democracies are diverse and the demographic trends are for increased diversity over the next generations. The related ethical issues raised for schools are many and complex. To illustrate the difficulties, Appiah asks readers to consider two elementary classroom practices: (1) a rule that no discussion is complete until everyone has spoken (p. 65) and (2) the teacher makes a habit of asking children to explain what other children have said (p. 66). The ethical motivation for both practices includes treating individuals with equal respect and with equal worth in the classroom discourse. As Appiah argues, while uncontroversial to many, not every social group in this country believes that children should be encouraged to speak up (p.66). In this situation, should it be the secular state, or a cultural or religious group, or an individual parents preference that should determine the classroom practice? To what extent does the nature of the group (e.g. liberal or illiberal) matter? What role, if any, should the student have (if some role, how might it differ with age)? Multicultural diversity and conflicts within, between and among groups is a theme that recurs in several chapters of the book. Many of the groups to which one belongs (e.g. faith or political communities) place formal and informal pressures on individual choice (raising other significant ethical issues). Okin, in the chapter Mistresses of their own destiny, focuses directly on this question:
Any consistent defence of group rights or exemptions that is based on liberal premises has to ensure that at least one individual right the right to exit ones group of origin trumps any group right [I]t is surprising that so little attention has been paid in the literature about multicultural group rights to the fact that persons in different subgroups within most cultural and religious groups have very different chances of being able to exit from them successfully (p. 325).

Neither of these brief descriptions can begin to summarize adequately the arguments of Appiah or Okin introduced above. Appiahs was selected and highlighted simply because of an index entry of interest to JME readers; Okins because her succinct statement of the issue was a logical extension of the practical and ethical dilemma raised by Appiahs discussion of pedagogy for autonomy. Although chosen almost at random, these chapters are representative both of the quality of the entire volume and of the issues raised that will be of interest to moral educators. If this brief review cannot summarize (let alone respond to) the arguments of two contributors, by extension it cannot possibly do justice to the entire book and the range of complex issues, multiple and rich perspectives, nor the nuanced arguments the fifteen authors offer readers. In addition to the editors separate chapters and those by Appiah and Okin, the volume includes works by David Blacker, Harry Brighthouse, Shelley Burtt, Joseph Dunne, J. Mark Halstead, Stephen Macedo, Terence H. McLaughlin, Rob Reich, Kenneth Strike, Jeremy Waldron and Melissa S. Williams. As is the case with any substantive work of philosophy, a reader will be entering an ongoing discourse. Readers will benefit from previous reading they have done in the field (e.g. an acquaintance with the political philosophy of John Rawls). However, to the credit

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of the authors and editors, enough background information is presented in each chapter (text, notes and references) that readers should not feel adrift among the arguments. To conclude, McDonough, Feinberg and their co-authors have produced a valuable book that raises significant issues every educator and policy-maker should consider and themes that every responsible moral educator must address. The volume provides rich resources for educators and policy makers to consider in decisions that range from determining the essential philosophical questions about the purposes of public schooling to the selection of specific classroom practices congruent with or inimical to those ends.

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Dr. Robert Howard, Associate Professor, Education Program, University of Washington, Tacoma, MS358435, 1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma, WA 984023100, USA. Email: rwhoward@u.washington.edu

Changing citizenship: democracy and inclusion in education Audrey Osler and Hugh Starkey, 2005 Maidenhead, UK, Open University Press 60 (hbk), 19.99 (sbk), 229 pp. ISBN 0-335-211828 (hbk), ISBN 0-335-21181-X (sbk)

Teachers, human rights and diversity: educating citizens in multicultural societies Audrey Osler (Ed.), 2005 Stoke on Trent, UK and Sterling, USA, Trentham Books 16.99, 210 pp. ISBN 1-85856- 339- 9

Taking a stand: Gus John speaks on education, race, social action and civil unrest 19802005 Gus John, 2006 Manchester, Gus John Partnership Ltd 16.99, 607 pp. ISBN 0-9547843-1-6

On 10 December 2004 the General Assembly of the United Nations published a draft plan of action for the first phase (20052007) of the World Programme for Human Rights Education, focusing on primary and secondary schools. The draft was revised in the light of comments from Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Greece, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Turkey, and re-published on 2 March 2005. Human rights education (HRE) in schools, as

598 Book reviews

defined by the UN, (see http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/education/training/programme.htm) has five broad components: policies; planning policy implementation; the learning environment; teaching and learning; and the education and professional development of teachers and other education personnel. Under each of these broad headings there are many sub-components, each of them a discrete course of action which every education system in the world is expected to undertake. There are about 30 of these action points in the case of policies, 15 in the case of implementation, 17 for the learning environment, 30 for teaching and learning, and 21 for the initial training and continuing development of teachers. All three of the books under consideration here will be invaluable, both directly and indirectly, for guiding both general policies and specific projects within the UN programme. They emanate from work in the UK or Ireland but contain material and discussions likely to be relevant in many other countries. The book by Osler and Starkey is divided into three parts: changing concepts of citizenship in the era of increasing globalisation; the concept of educational inclusion; and the need for schools to be microcosms and living examples of democracy. Running through the book there is an emphasis on what the authors call cosmopolitan citizenship and a concern to develop a sense of belonging, not only in ones local neighbourhood and cultural tradition but also in the national polity where one has citizenship rights and in the global community as a whole. Central to both these concepts, as developed by Osler and Starkey, is that of multiple identities. A cosmopolitan citizen, they say, has characteristics such as the following: recognition of common humanity and solidarity with others, particularly those who are relatively voiceless and marginalised; interest in and concern for people in countries other than ones own whose rights are infringed on a systematic basis; critical reflection on the customs, norms and shared assumptions prevalent in the communities to which one belongs; and recognition that every community is complex, as is every individual identity. Cosmopolitan citizens:
make connections between issues, events and challenges at all levels. They critique and evaluate within contexts of cultural diversity. They have a sense of solidarity with those denied their full human rights, whether in local communities or in distant places. They accept shared responsibility for humanitys common future. They are confident in their own multiple identities and develop new identities as they encounter and relate to other cultural groups. (p. 24)

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These grand ideals are applied to a range of specific, practical contexts, including schools behaviour policies, the inclusion of learners with special educational needs, consulting and involving learners in the organisation of their school and of their education more generally, mainstreaming antiracism, children as active citizens and the development of relevant leadership skills in senior staff. The suggestions and discussions are close to everyday practice and quote extensively the voices of teachers and young people. There is recognition but this could have had a higher profile, arguably that in the conservative press in the UK there is at present deep suspicion of human rights, and indeed often outright opposition to them. A human rights culture, several UK national newspapers claim, is a culture of political correctness gone mad, part of an attack on the traditions and customs that are central to British identity. Osler and Starkey give a great deal of emphasis to the concept of responsibility, and stress over and over again that there are many different ways of being British. Their book will support teachers and head

Book reviews 599

teachers under assault from newspaper editors who see human rights as merely an unpatriotic gimmick dreamed up by what they call the political correctness brigade. The support will be implicit, however, rather than overt and direct, partly no doubt because the current assault on human rights in conservative circles in the UK has become particularly virulent and pernicious since their book went to press. It would have been difficult to predict it. Yet the right-wing press has a long history of opposition and hostility towards what Oslers and Starkeys book stands for. To give a single example, a report which the authors frequently cite and commend, the Parekh Report on The future of multi-ethnic Britain (2000; London, Profile Books) was disgracefully misrepresented and derided by the press when it first appeared. Teachers and head teachers need solidarity and support when dealing with hostile media, and with the influence such media have on the general climate of opinion. This could perhaps be a more central topic in Oslers and Starkeys future work. In the meanwhile, much gratitude is due to them for their clarity and reflection. The collection of essays that Osler alone has edited provides several vivid case-studies showing how education for cosmopolitan citizenship can successfully happen in practice. Carole Hahn reviews and discusses projects in the USA and in England, within the larger context of the civic education study conducted in some 28 different countries by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Two chapters are written by teams of authors about fascinating projects in Northern Ireland; one is about the impact of integrated education on childrens attitudes and the Cuanacha other on education for a bill of rights. South of the border, Colm O in writes inspiringly about the development of a rights-respecting school in the Republic of Ireland. Chapters about England include accounts of a school-based action research project by Anne Hudson; of moral dilemmas in the teaching of history by Hilary Claire; and particularly valuable in the light of the comments above about standing up to anxieties about so-called political correctness of challenging popular discourse about refugees, asylum and aliens, by Jill Rutter. The collection as a whole is authoritatively introduced by the distinguished North American scholar James Banks. Gus John has had a public profile in the UK for at least 30 years as a tireless and passionate campaigner for racial justice and human rights, and as an astringent and withering critic of successive governments. He has worked not only as a community activist, both in local settings and nationally, but also as an academic and a senior educational administrator. His book, Taking a stand, contains the texts of some 40 lectures, speeches and statements, mostly from the last few years. Some, though, pertain to events in the 1980s or 1990s in which the author played a prominent role as a commentator or actor, or both. The opening section pertains to the authors most recent campaign, one which is far from being over. The recollections of earlier struggles are valuable and inspiring in their own right. Also, they are fascinating for showing how the authors current views and concerns are deeply rooted in substantial personal and professional experience over many years. In autumn 2005 the British government published Raising standards, better schools for all, a White Paper namely, a formal statement about its proposals and intentions for new policies for reorganising school-based education in England (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/ publications/schoolswhitepaper). The paper is white, observes John in the opening paragraph of Taking a stand (p. 1), in every sense of the word. Black and Minority Ethnic

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600 Book reviews

Children are disposed of in three paragraphs that take up half a page in a 116 page document. He observes further, in the following sentence, that the paper is completely silent on the issue of schools and governing bodies legal obligations in compliance with anti-discrimination and human rights education. With these words he situates his concerns solidly within the human rights context with which Osler and Starkey are also concerned. His tone, however, is much more critical and polemical and more aware of violent conflict on the streets, and in the school playgrounds, of British towns and cities. He never lets the reader forget that for some people racial justice is literally a life and death issue. His book is also distinctive by virtue of the autobiographical references throughout, and in its frequent references to how individual teachers, campaigners and administrators need to maintain commitment, energy and passion in their inner lives. John consistently draws attention to silences by policy-makers, as, for example, in the 2005 White Paper, mentioned above, and to yawning gaps between fine and promising words in policy statements and legislation, on the one hand, and the grim realities of rejection and exclusion experienced by young people of African-Caribbean and South Asian heritage in British schools, on the other. His frequently expressed anger is tightly focused, not indiscriminate, and his stand on racial justice is closely related to stands on issues to do with gender, class and disability. Throughout, he not only asks penetrating questions but also offers practical recommendations and suggestions, many of them itemised and enumerated with challenging clarity. His book is a fine complement to the discussions provided by Osler and Starkey, and a forceful reminder that the UN Programme for Human Rights Education must engage hearts as well as minds, contain passion as well as prose, and take place not only in classrooms and schools but also in struggles and campaigns in the wider community.

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Robin Richardson is a director of the Insted consultancy based in London www.insted.co.uk, and was an Editorial Board member of JME 19832006. Email: robin@insted.co.uk

Democracy and diversity. Principles and concepts for educating citizens in a global age James A. Banks, Cherry A. McGee Banks, Carlos E. Cortes, Carole L. Hahn, Merry M. Merryfield, Kogila A. Moodley, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Audrey Osler, Caryn Park and Walter C. Parker, 2005 Washington, Seattle, Centre for Multicultural Education Publications, (http://depts.washington.edu/centerme/home.htm) $9.50, 36 pp.

This publication is the report of a Diversity, Citizenship and Global Education consensus panel established by the Center for Multicultural Education, University of

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Washington. Democracy and diversity is aimed at school practitioners and consists of a set of four principles and ten concepts for educating citizens in a global age. It also includes a very useful checklist to generate discussion about the principles and concepts and an extended list of references. The four principles are constructed under two headings: firstly, diversity, unity, global interconnectedness and human rights (Principles 13); and secondly, experience and partnership (Principle 4). The ten concepts are: democracy; diversity; globalization; sustainable development; empire, imperialism and power; prejudice, discrimination and racism; migration; identity/diversity; multiple perspectives and patriotism and cosmopolitanism. The introduction contextualises the principles and concepts within post-World War II global migration and the challenge of increased racial, cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic diversity in many parts of the world. Contemporary, democratic multicultural societies strive to reconcile this diversity with the shared values, ideals and goals of their society. This unity-diversity tension should ideally be balanced and the principles and concepts, derived from theory, research and wisdom of practice, can help to maintain this balance. They are not presented as prescriptive but as guidelines that can be adopted and adapted to local, regional and national needs, and although aimed primarily at educators in the USA, can also be used by educators in other democratic nation states. The principles aim to develop reflective citizens who critically examine and evaluate the success and limitations of the balance between unity and diversity in their nation state citizens who also have a good knowledge and understanding of global interconnectedness and the impact that local and national events can have on the rest of the world. The principles stress the importance of teaching human rights to students, but also teaching students within school contexts that acknowledge and respect human rights. Furthermore, students should be able to actively participate in democracy in schools, becoming regularly involved in decision making about the problems and controversies of school life, through the process of deliberation. The deliberations should be undertaken by a group that: proceeds as a group; is diverse; tackles genuine problems and makes decisions that are binding on all students. The concepts are all examined in some depth and many are explained very well. The benefits of globalization, for example, are outlined, but the counter effects of globalisation are also identified. The discussion of the concept of empire, imperialism and power explores older and newer models of imperialism, referring to some prevalent contemporary models: media imperialism; electronic imperialism and communications imperialism. The discussion of migration stresses the urgency of recognising that migration is a dominant feature of global life and not a temporary phase. The explanation of the concept of democracy is, however, a little uneven and reflects a US perspective understandable given the origin of the publication, but nevertheless appearing somewhat incongruous and parochial compared to the discussion of other concepts. A more serious flaw emerges in the explanation of the concepts of prejudice, discrimination and racism. On first reading this appears to be a well conceived and well written section: the roots of prejudice, discrimination and racism lie in power relations forged from slavery, colonialism and imperialism; discrimination, state the authors, and can be based on negative behaviour towards people because of their race, class, gender

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602 Book reviews

and sexual orientation. On second reading it becomes clear that there is a missing component in this discussion: religion. There are very brief references to religion within other concepts, but no reference in relation to prejudice, discrimination and racism. Surely religious discrimination and prejudice (often linked to cultural and racial discrimination) are key causes of social divisiveness? This is a surprising omission in a document that has otherwise been so carefully constructed and, confusingly, religion is included in the checklist under prejudice, discrimination and racism as a form of discrimination equal to discrimination based on class, gender and sexual orientation. Democracy and diversity is, despite this curious anomaly, a very useful and practical document and should be, as the authors suggest, a springboard for discussion for educators preparing students for citizenship in a global context.

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Stephen J. McKinney, Department of Religious Education, University of Glasgow, St Andrews Building, 11 Eldon Street, G3 6NH, UK. Email: s.mckinney@educ. gla.ac.uk

Betwixt and between: the liminal imagination and democracy James C. Conroy, 2004 New York, Peter Lang 19, $32 (pbk), 217 pp. ISBN 950-8204-6914-9

James Conroys main target in this work is what he refers to as discursive closure, the restriction or curtailment of human thought and/or imagination, under the combined pressure of a range of contemporary economic, social, political and educational trends, agencies and institutions. It is Conroys fear that latter day market-economic, globalizing and secular trends are conspiring or threatening to turn the citizenry of modern (or postmodern) polities into little more than passive and unreflective slaves of postindustrial consumer capitalism, and that the homogenising processes of contemporary state schooling seem often (wittingly or otherwise) to be complicit in this aim. It might of course be said that the ills to which Conroy believes contemporary society and schooling are heir could be generally addressed by the promotion of so-called liberal education? Has it not been the main burden of theorists of liberal education from at least the nineteenth century to the present to create just those educational opportunities for open enquiry and conversation that might allow individuals to be critical agents of their own freely chosen destinies and has this conception not had a crucial influence on the aims and curricular content of most state schooling in western liberal democracies? It is a striking feature of Conroys thesis that while he does not entirely repudiate the liberal educational ideal, he does seem to consider it seriously compromised by the trends and influences for which his liminal education is proposed as remedial. One of

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the more explicit respects in which Conroy sees the idea of a liberal education as so compromised is in its alleged identification with or embrace of secularism. A more general respect in which what is paraded as liberal education in modern state schooling would seem to be regarded as problematic is by virtue of the alleged association of modern liberalism with that very market economy that has led to contemporary global consumer capitalism. On this view, the liberalism that gave rise to modern state liberal education also has the worm of individualist free enterprise consumerism at its root. In this light, Conroy argues for the creation or preservation of educationally imaginative and subversive spaces and perspectives what he refers to in this work as liminal spaces that might equip citizens of tomorrow with the critical resources to liberate them from the morally and spiritually debilitating mind-control that he takes to pervade contemporary society and schooling. The main body of this work consists of an imaginative exploration of a number of key themes or vehicles the trickster, humour, poetry and Catholic education that might afford access to such liminal spaces. The outcome of such exploration is undoubtedly thought-provoking and merits serious educational attention. That said, it is arguable that there are conceptual and normative problems about Conroys diagnosis of the contemporary ills with which he is concerned to which we should briefly here attend before proceeding to a more positive appraisal of his liminal spaces. One worry relates to Conroys scepticism concerning liberal education which might appear overstated if not misplaced. First, the idea that liberalism and liberal education are inherently secular is questionable and probably elides two quite different considerations. Indeed, the claim seems to forget that liberal theory had its very origins in a postreformation concern to defend freedom of individual religious conscience against any potentially tyrannical alliance of the state with particular sectarian agendas. Hence, the idea (inherent in the constitutional arrangements of some modern states) that the state should be secular in short, neutral between different comprehensive theories of the good does not mean that any liberal perspective has to be secular (or atheistic). On the contrary, the notion that no serious normative perspectives are to be excluded from the liberal conversation about human destiny and flourishing, is absolutely integral to liberalism, and it is noteworthy that in such older liberal democracies such as that of the UK in which there has not been strict separation between religion and state, religious education has had a crucial and often central place in the school curriculum. (Where this may not always have been a very coherent notion of religious education, one rather suspects that this has been the failing of theorists of religious education more than official policy makers.) Similarly, any linking of liberal education to modern liberal economic trends and goals could be no more than a misunderstanding, and one could hardly accuse great modern architects of liberal education from Newman and Arnold to Peters and Scheffler of collusion with consumerism: on the contrary, it has clearly been the main aim of modern theories of liberal education to expose young people to the best that has been thought and said and (thereby) to equip them with the critical capacities and faculties to resist such consumerism. But if there seems something misdirected about Conroys critique of liberal education, there would seem to be something no less problematic about his search for a

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604 Book reviews

satisfactory liminal alternative to liberal theory. In attempting to characterise the liminal, Conroy shows some inclination towards the currently fashionable (not least among religious educationalists) phenomenological language of alterity, and of the unconditional value of otherness which I also think needs treating with caution. At all events, as Conroy rightly seems to appreciate later in his work, there can be no embrace of the other that is entirely free from some normative appraisal since there can be kinds of otherness that are conspicuously not consistent with any moral or spiritual health and flourishing. Indeed, what we might reasonably require from any form of otherness that sought to be included in any educational conversation is that it is precisely at odds with illiberal intolerance of alternative views. From this viewpoint, Conroys support for modern Catholic schools as a religious model of the liminal perspective is at once misleading and instructive. For the point about Catholic education in the UK is that it works as such a model precisely in so far as it has been able to enter successfully into the wider liberal conversation about human flourishing and to embrace liberal tolerance of other perspectives. It is clear from what Conroy says elsewhere that he would not feel quite so easy about recognising the normatively unqualified liminal legitimacy of other more intolerant, bigoted and oppressive forms of religious belief and education. This is not, of course, to deny that Catholic schools may precisely make a potentially rich and fertile religious contribution to the larger educational conversation of precisely the kind that Conroy claims. It is rather to say that it is overstated or at least misleading to suggest that they represent some liminal alternative to liberal education. On the contrary, the contribution of such schools is arguably better seen as part of the enrichment of liberal education and schooling. To be sure, it does seem to be a concern of Conroy that religious schooling has too far accommodated to a corrupted liberalism. But my worry in turn about this concern like my unease about Conroys attempt to create a liminal space within liberal education is that this seems rather dilemmatic: either liminal or religious education are simply alternative voices within liberal education in which case it is not clear that they represent distinctive theoretical developments of the liberal educational ideal or they are doing something that is at odds with the liberal educational ideal in which case it is not clear that we should welcome them. Still, if as I believe there is no inherent opposition or contradiction between liberalism and any normative perspectives that are at least consistent with fundamental liberal ethics of freedom of thought, tolerance and respect for others, it might usefully be asked what might have encouraged Conroys view that liberalism is inherently secular or inhospitable to religion? I think that what Conroys provocative explorations of his various aspects of liminality in the later substantial chapters of this book recognise at least implicitly is that the tension between liberalism and religion is not so much normative as epistemic. For if liberalism could be said to have a distinctive epistemology, it would have to be characterised as mainly empiricist. Once again, any connection between liberalism and empiricism seems more contingent than necessary, since such great nineteenth century architects of liberal education as Newman and Arnold were as hospitable as could be wished to the profound educational value of such non-empirical forms of enquiry as

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Book reviews 605

religion or theology and literature. But it is also beyond dispute that the liberal tradition from Locke to Mill and beyond has been historically and culturally associated with empiricist theories of knowledge and with a corresponding agnosticism or scepticism about modes of enquiry not grounded in empirical evidence. From this viewpoint, the great interest of Conroys chapters on poetry, humour, the trickster and Catholic education lies in their exploration of a range of fertile possibilities for knowledge and understanding that do open up alternative as well as educationally relevant perspectives on the human condition and its potential for good or ill. Take, for one example, Conroys chapter on the teacher as trickster. What is problematic about this chapter is precisely Conroys deployment of it as a metaphor for teaching or the role of the teacher (something that comes out in the authors own frequent insistence on the professional limits of this metaphor). But what is compelling about his discussion of the trickster is the suggestion that teachers may stand to be wiser educators by virtue of acquaintance with the wisdom traditions in which Conroys tricksters feature prominently. From this viewpoint, the strengths of the trickster chapter are no less evident in Conroys discussions of poetry and the education of the imagination which further develop themes previously explored in a 1999 JME paper, Poetry and human growth (28(4), 491510). Here, in the course of close and perceptive attention to the poetry of Donne, Hopkins, Plath, Heaney, Christina Rossetti and many others, Conroy makes a powerful and eloquent case for poetry as a significant source of normative enquiry and understanding that is both welcome and well overdue in the contemporary literature of educational philosophy and theory. Moreover, from this perspective, it is not just that poetry needs to be in the school curriculum because it deserves as much space as science or mathematics and should therefore be available for those whose interest and taste lies more in that than other directions but that poetry (perhaps along with other arts) provides a unique and indispensable route to human self-understanding with universal value for all children. But if that is so, it is also the case that it is not just teachers of poetry who ought to read poetry with a view to their enhanced professional development as teachers, but that all who would aspire to the higher calling of educators of youth might also benefit from poetry. Thus, although it may be doubted whether Conroys various modes of liminality work well as metaphors for particular contexts, institutions or processes of education or pedagogy, they do point to a fuller, richer and more imaginative conception of education and professional teacher expertise than it is common to find in either much literature of educational theory or many contexts of professional teacher training. From this viewpoint, Conroys work is one with which I have much sympathy and which I believe may be read with profit by any and all with professional or other interest in the most pressing problems of contemporary education.

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Dr David Carr, Professor of Philosophy of Education, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, Chateris Land, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8AQ. Email: david.carr@ed.ac.uk

606 Book reviews Empowering children: childrens rights education as a pathway to citizenship R. Brian Howe and Katherine Covell, 2005 Toronto, Buffalo and London, University of Toronto Press 28.00 (hbk), 245 pp. ISBN 0-8020-3857-3

In Empowering children two reasons are given for teaching children about their rights under the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. One of these is unsound, at least in the form in which it is stated, but this is more than compensated for by the richness and pedagogic insights of the other. To dispose of the bad argument first: it is suggested that children have a legal right to such teaching by virtue of Article 42 of the Convention itself, which almost all countries have now ratified. As niggling detractors will point out, however, the Convention does not strictly create legal rights itself, and as Howe and Covell themselves concede, certainly not rights which can legally be claimed, either by children or by others on their behalf, even if it imposes on states the obligation to take steps to promote the conditions in which these rights will eventually be implemented. Nor would the possession of rights automatically confer the status of citizens on children. Non-citizens are not without rights within the borders of civilised states. This, of course, is not to deny that there may be other reasons for regarding children as citizens of a kind, even though their citizenship prerogatives are limited by their youth and inexperience. If all this sounds pedantic and small-minded, it is important that defenders of childrens rights should not overstate their case lest they expose too vulnerable a flank to those who would make nonsense of their cause. For practitioners, however, the issue of whether or not Article 42 of the Convention explicitly creates a legal right is rendered trivial by the overwhelming pedagogic argument contained in the central chapters for treating the Convention as a key element, not only in citizenship education but in moral education more generally. For in our modern democratic world, in which the views of citizens may not only influence policy but result in the cashiering of governments, citizenship education and the values of democracy may be as important a part of moral education as those values that govern private conduct. Howe and Covell, briefly but convincingly, rehearse the content and shortcomings of various previous and existing approaches to citizenship education which are, in general, shown to be fragmented, emphasising particular skills in specific areas and, for the most part, negatively oriented. More importantly, by treating children not as citizens and the possessors of rights now but merely as future citizens, or not yets, who will be called upon to exercise their citizenship learning at a later date, they often fail to engage pupils. Howe and Covell argue, with reference to a range of empirical research, that values and behavioural learning are centrally concerned with identity and the development of self. Children engage with the notion of childrens rights because it is their rights that are at issue and the notion of themselves as possessors of rights contributes to their sense of self-esteem. Notions such as fairness, equality, respect for difference, listening to others points of view and, above all, universality and reciprocity

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are essential to the notion of rights as represented in the Convention of the Rights of the Child, as they are in other United Nations rights documents. These are the underlying values essential to participation in democratic public institutions and political life. In coming to understand the nature and basis of their own rights, pupils learn to appreciate the rights of others both in their immediate community and globally. If this programme is to be effective and the values of citizenship and moral education are to be caught as a result of what the authors term rights reflection, teaching must naturally be of an appropriate kind, democratic and involving co-operative learning in a positive classroom climate. The authors of Empowering children report on evaluated experiments in childrens rights education in Belgium and England and, in particular, in Canada in childrens rights curricula developed by the Childrens Rights Centre of the University College of Cape Breton, of which they are co-directors. Significant findings suggest that the period of adolescence is the most suitable for the introduction of such teaching and that, far from making children more unruly and difficult to control, it leads to a more mature understanding of what rights are as well as to improved behaviour in relation to the rights of others. Those in control groups, by contrast, tended to see rights mostly in terms of their own supposed freedoms. The opening and final chapters of the book provide a useful reminder of many of the familiar objections and obstacles to the teaching of childrens rights and provide some hope that these may eventually be overcome. Empowering children is a good read. The style is measured and accessible and, subject to reservations mentioned at the beginning of this review, it is entirely convincing. It is informative and well researched and, as a bonus, the 1989 United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child is included as an appendix. It has a valuable contribution to make to any course of study concerned with citizenship or moral education or with the development and management of the school curriculum more generally, as well as being highly relevant to the work of many established practitioners.

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Dr Colin A. Wringe, Honorary Fellow, Department of Education, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, UK. Email: c.a.wringe@keele.ac.uk

The discourse of character education: culture wars in the classroom Peter Smagorinsky and Joel Taxel, 2005 Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates $99.95 (hbk), $45.00 (pbk), 416 pp. ISBN 0-8058-5126-7 (hbk), ISBN/ISSN: 0-8058-5127-5 (pbk)

The relationship between politics and education is particularly complicated these days, at least in the USA. While political assumptions and values have always played a part in

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shaping both educational policy and educational practice, since 2000 the role of politics in education has become more salient, and more divisive, than ever. The most obvious example is President George W. Bushs controversial No Child Left Behind initiative; less obvious, but no less important, are the political values and assumptions that influence current approaches to character education at the local, state and national levels. Peter Smagorinsky and Joel Taxel seek to illuminate precisely this intersection of politics, policy and practice in the realm of character education in their important new book, The discourse of character education. Most important and interesting, however, is the approach they adopt for their project: namely, a discourse analysis of proposals submitted to and funded by the United States Department of Educations Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) during the later half of the 1990s. Such an approach allows Smagorinsky and Taxel to analyze the ways in which words, language and forms of discourse reflect a particular world view, a way of being in the world, informed by specific ideological and political assumptions and commitments. As such, this book clearly reveals the forces that shape and influence how character education is grounded, framed, implemented and assessed in the contemporary USA, by considering the following research questions: 1. Discourse: In what ways are the [proposed] curricula in dialogue with the call for proposals? More broadly, in what discourses are the curricula situated? Within these discourses, what assumptions are embedded? Within these assumptions, on what issues are the proposals silent? 2. Curriculum: What does the educational program look like? What is their conception of character? What is the rationale for a character education curriculum? What tensions or conflicts are exhibited in the curriculum? 3. Assessment: What are the anticipated effects of the program? How does the program determine that character has been educated or that other program goals have been achieved? (p. xvi) Smagorinsky and Taxel focus on proposals submitted from two different geographic regions of the USA the Upper Midwest and the Deep South. The discourse found in the proposals from these two regions reveal two distinct conceptions of character and character education that define a continuum: at one end of the continuum is a conception of character that reflects the dominant perspective promoted in the contemporary USA, based on an individualistic, authoritarian view in which young people are indoctrinated into a particular value system through didactic instruction. Smagorinsky and Taxel call this an orthodox or conservative view of character; it was most clearly articulated in proposals from two adjacent states from the Deep South. At the other end of the continuum is a conception of character that reflects a wellestablished yet currently marginal perspective in the contemporary USA, focusing attention to the community context in which character is developed and enacted, and emphasizing reflection on morality, rather than didactic instruction, as the primary instructional approach. Smagorinsky and Taxel call this a progressive or liberal view of character; it was most clearly articulated in proposals from two adjacent states in the Upper Midwest.

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Smagorinsky and Taxel also offer a discourse analysis of the OERI Request for Proposals. Not surprisingly, this analysis reveals a conservative ideological and political bias at the federal level with respect to character and character education. States seeking funding from the OERI must accommodate to these biases, regardless of the conception of character and character education that they themselves propose. In sum, Smagorinsky and Taxels study identifies ways in which the concept of character is inescapably a sociocultural construction. It is influenced by historical events, and shaped by ideological assumptions and political values. In the contemporary USA, as in many other countries around the globe, geographic location serves as a marker for many of these social, cultural, historical, ideological and political differences. As such, Smagorinsky and Taxel refute the notion that character consists of a set of culture-free, universal traits, attitudes and dispositions upon which we all can agree. Instead, by focusing on two distinct geographic regions and their unique discourse patterns, Smagorinsky and Taxel clearly locate both the theory and practice of character education in the context of historical notions about the nature of character, and regional conceptions about the nature of USA society and culture. Particularly helpful in this regard are the extended discussions that Smagorinsky and Taxel provide of the two geographic regions in the US on which their study focuses. These descriptions provide a clear example of the kind of extended analysis of sociocultural contexts that is so critical in this kind of work. Moreover, Smagorinsky and Taxel are very explicit about the biases and assumptions that each brings to this project. Their honesty and forthrightness is a refreshing contrast to the illusory objectivity that is still so common in contemporary social science, and should serve as a model for other scholars across a wide range of disciplines. This is a significant and timely book. Their unique methodological approach enables Smagorinsky and Taxel to highlight central issues in the contemporary field of character education. By providing evidence for the sociocultural situatedness of conceptions of character (and morality), they contribute to the growing literature that seeks to move beyond the view that the processes, dynamics and endpoints of human development are universal transcultural and ahistorical toward an explicit consideration of the role that social-cultural-historical-institutional contexts play in giving rise to human action and interaction including moral action. Most importantly, Smagorinsky and Taxel provide a framework that will help the field move beyond polemics in the debate about character and character education, toward genuine dialogue and mutual understanding. Such a dialogue is never easy, particularly among those with very different assumptions, presuppositions, biases and worldviews. But it is critically important, nonetheless, as we seek to make this world a more just and caring place for all our children.

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Dr Mark B. Tappan, Professor of Education and Human Development, Colby College, 4426 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, ME 04901 USA. Email: mbtappan@ colby.edu

610 Book reviews Social judgments: implicit and explicit processes J. P. Forgas, K. D. Williams and W. von Hippel (Eds), 2003 Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press $95.00 (hbk), 417 pp. ISBN 0-521-82248-3

Moral psychological research has addressed a number of ways that moral decisions are made. In the moral domain, factors such as sociocognitive development, personality, self-understanding, identity, gender, cultural context, behavioural reinforcement and emotion (to name a few) are all influential in informing decisions. Regardless of the prevailing influence on a particular moral decision, moral decision-making can be quick, automatic and implicit, or it can be deliberate, controlled and explicit. It is also possible that moral decision-making can involve both kinds of processing. As a result of these different processes, moral researchers must ponder a variety of questions such as, When are moral decisions likely to be impacted by automatic versus deliberate processing? and Does the kind of processing impact the soundness of the moral decision? and Does an interaction of processes interfere or improve the effectiveness of the moral decision? Thanks to Social judgments: implicit and explicit processes, those with an interest in moral decision-making have a wealth of information at their disposal in contemplating these questions. As its editors note, the publication of the compilations organized in this book is the result of the ongoing Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology (SSSP) series, whose objective is to provide new, integrative understanding of the important areas of social psychology (p. xix). Although this volumes contributors represent diverse areas relevant to the social sciences, all are unified in their consideration of two noted overarching themes: (1) To acknowledge and illustrate that social decision-making is the result of both implicit (a.k.a. automatic, reflexive, hot and deep) and explicit (a.k.a. deliberate, reflective, cold and high) processes; and (2) To organize, conceptualize and articulate the involvement and role of both types of processing in various circumstances and conditions involving social decision-making. In delineating the involvement of implicit and explicit processes, Social judgments: implicit and explicit processes is organized into three parts. Part One is entitled Fundamental Influences on Social Judgments and focuses on the influence of evolution, neuroanatomy, developmental and personality influences. For example, Haselton and Buss consider the adaptive nature of social judgements that males and females are prone to make in interacting with each other. Ultimately, they suggest that many social judgements, while often flawed, are inherently necessary for our survival. In considering the role of brain functioning, Lieberman addresses the brain areas associated with reflexive and reflective processes of decision making while Zarate and Stoever account for hemispheric distinctions in local and global aspects of person perception. Shaver and Mikulincer denote how insecure attachments can trigger hyperactivating and deactivating strategies impacting the

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manner in which individuals respond to and process a host of social decisionmaking situations. In the sections last chapter, Funder endorses a return to a social psychological approach to person perception in describing his Realistic Accuracy Model, which illustrates the role of the relevance, availability, detection and utilization of personality traits in the achievement of accurate social judgements. Part Two is referenced as Cognitive and Intrapsychic Mechanisms of Social Judgments, and sundry such mechanisms are addressed. This section begins with a chapter from Kruglanski, Chun, Erb, Pierro, Mannetti and Spiegel who use their Unimodel of Human Judgment to make a compelling argument against models that separate rather than integrate implicit and explicit modes of judgement. The fallibility of our cognitive and intrapsychic mechanisms is the focus of the next two chapters. For example, Fiedler and Freytag illustrate scenarios involving pseudo-contingencies in order to show how and why our implicit judgements can be susceptible to misinformation and inaccuracies. How context contributes to stereotypic judgements is considered by Bless, Schwarz and Wanke, who review their Inclusion/Exclusion Model in determining the size of assimilation effects (e.g. implicit inclusion of stereotypical information) and contrast effects (e.g. explicit exclusion of stereotypical information as a standard of comparison). The role of affective processes is the focus of the next two chapters. In discussing the Affect Infusion Model, Forgas and East dissect how affect becomes infused in information processing, causing both implicit and explicit processing ramifications. Stapel shows that although the processing of affective information in terms of valence occurs quickly and automatically, descriptive processing of emotional stimuli enables adaptive and flexible judgements. In this sections final chapter, von Hippel, Vargas and Sekaquaptewa denote how attitudes infiltrate cognitive processing and offer that it is process (e.g. bias) over content (e.g. evaluative beliefs) that is largely responsible for how the attitude object is perceived and regarded. Whereas the Part Two comprises the intrapersonal, Part Three, Interpersonal and Social Influences on Social Judgments, features the interpersonal. In the first chapter, Suls, Martin and Wheeler cite the utility of the Proxy Model of ability self-evaluation and the Triadic Model of opinion comparison in explaining the explicit nature of how humans make accurate judgements about their abilities. Next, Chartrand and Jefferis focus on implicit aspects of social situations in explaining how non-conscious goal pursuit of affiliation can be automatically activated. This often results in unintentional behavioural mimicry, which increases the likelihood of affiliation and results in specific judgements about others. Both implicit and explicit processes are addressed in the next three chapters: McClure, Sutton and Hilton discuss how each pertain to goal-based explanations; Williams, Case and Govan focus on the role of both in situations involving social ostracism; and Galinsky, Martorana and Ku denote the involvement of each in terms of perspective taking and suppression. An emphasis on implicit processing and the interpersonal is again seen in the last chapter where Johnston and Miles explore the role of external and internal attributions in the validation and invalidation of conceived stereotypes.

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Although this books focus is on social judgments and decisions, it is an essential read for those with a vested interest in the moral domain. There are a couple of aspects that researchers of the moral domain may find perplexing, however. For example, moral researchers from traditions that solely focus on explicit processes may be left with a certain amount of healthy scepticism regarding implicit processes. Given their conceivable lack of familiarity regarding the measurement of implicit processes along with an absence of information in this edition about the psychometric properties and historical background of the featured instruments, such scepticism is warranted. This is especially true considering that Brewers concluding chapter ends with the statement that, the study of conscious, deliberate, rule-based, domain-general processing that has the capability of controlling or overriding the output of deep system processes should continue to be the primary focus of social psychological theory and research on social cognition, judgment and decision making (p. 395). Although the book targets social decision-making that is not necessarily moral, all readers should quickly recognize the applicability of the findings and insights noted in this book to moral situations. Consequently, it is hoped that the increasing relevance and acceptance of the role of both implicit and explicit processes to judgements and decision-making overall will yield another volume either by the SSSP or a similar consortium of moral psychological researchers that addresses the nature of judgements and decisions within the moral domain from the vantage points set forth in this volume. Indeed, as illustrated in Social judgments: implicit and explicit processes, it is obvious that the consideration and integration of both implicit and explicit processes has advanced the boundaries and potentialities of social psychological research. After reading this edition, it is apparent that a similar effort could do the same for moral psychological research.

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Dr W. Pitt Derryberry, Associate Professor of Psychology, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd. #21030, Bowling Green, KY 42101-1030, USA. Email: pitt.derryberry@wku.edu

Psychology and consumer culture: the struggle for a good life in a materialistic world Tim Kasser and Allen D. Kanner (Eds), 2004 Washington DC, American Psychological Association $49.95 (hbk), 297 pp. ISBN 1-59147-046-3

What is materialism and what are its psychological roots? How does a culture of consumption affect the human psyche? What roles can and should psychology

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researchers, educators and clinicians play in the face of compelling evidence that consumerism jeopardizes individual, familial and communal well-being? These are among the timely and important issues explored in Psychology and consumer culture: the struggle for a good life in a materialistic world. The editors write that the purpose of the book is to encourage psychologists to consider and investigate the manifold ways in which consumer culture influences our lives (p. 5). Noting that the field of psychology has traditionally been concerned with manipulating, measuring, and understanding intrapsychic processes or individuals behaviors (p. 4), often in the service of industry, the volume offers an alternative paradigm for the field. This mission is pursued through 13 chapters, drawing on a diversity of methodologies, disciplines, and perspectives from 27 contributors. Reminiscent of the 1983 and 1993 special issues of the Journal of Communication, titled Ferment in the Field, this bold American Psychological Association publication invites readers to revision the nature and role of the field. The book is divided into four sections. The first includes five chapters addressing the nature and grave consequences of what the editors identify as widespread adherence to the psychology of consumer culture. Section Two includes three chapters offering theoretical perspectives, including explorations of spiritual and philosophical dimensions of the topic. The volumes third section includes three chapters specifically related to clinical issues, while the concluding three chapters explore the influence of commercialism on child development. Although only the final section of the book focuses specifically on child development and related issues, JME readers will find insights of direct relevance to their work throughout the volume. The books opening chapters draw attention to psychologys historical role in helping corporations foster the culture of consumptions constellation of aims, beliefs, goals and behaviors (p. 13). Readers are introduced to a multiplicity of research findings revealing inverse relationships between adherence to the resulting materialistic value orientation (p. 13) on the one hand, and happiness and well being (or eudaimonia) on the other. Notably, the chapters include research across cultural boundaries, suggesting such an inverse relationship regardless of social and material context. The volume directs our attention to the ubiquity of mass-mediated consumerist messages. We are reminded, for example, that the average child now sees 40,000 commercials annually on television alone (p. 214). The volume alerts readers to the significant role psychologists have played in creating strategies specifically designed for the childrens market (p. 219), as well as for fulfilment of broader corporate goals. The volume offers specific strategies to address this and related challenges. The authors strongly support media literacy work and encourage psychologists to participate actively in development and implementation of such efforts. The University of Notre Dames Good Media, Good Kids Project (http://goodmedia.nd.edu) offers an especially compelling example of moral educators potential contributions in this area. Given the alignment between the Association for Moral Educations goals and those outlined in the volume, moral educators could prove especially helpful in developing and implementing media literacy work of this kind across the nation. More broadly, the volume introduces readers to means by which a diversity of psychological approaches can be mobilized to help heal ourselves and the planet by finding ways to live less destructively on the Earth,

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by slowing down the mad rush for material consumption, and by participating in building a sustainable society (p. 83). Included is exploration of mindfulness as an antidote to consumerism (p. 107), as well as other means for fostering critical selfawareness, socially responsible consumption, compassion, relational abilities and critical thinking skills. These concerns align directly with the work of many moral educators across the nation. The volume strongly supports and provides resources for such efforts. Critical theorists and feminist scholars will resonate with the volumes contributions to raising consciousness. Some may question the limited and relatively simplistic direct attention given to issues of power, privilege, race, class, gender and related structural sources of injustice throughout the volume. At the same time, however, the volumes success in encouraging pursuit of such inquiry will address the essence of these concerns. Unlike their feminist and critical theorist counterparts, mainstream quantitative scholars may challenge the very heart of the volume. Citing the contributors explicit appeals to values, they may question the researchers objectivity. In response, the volumes contributors draw upon a wide diversity of studies and examples to unmask the inherently value-laden nature of all psychological research, education, and clinical work; as they remind us, we can no longer escape the fact that we must choose whose interests and values we wish our work to serve. Even so, quantitative researchers may raise concerns regarding the authors casual uses of terms such as consumer culture, consumerism, and materialism, happiness and well being, and challenge the volumes conclusions in light of the researchers inability to establish definitive causal links. Notably, the contributors acknowledge and address these concerns. Chapter Three, for example, presents data from 13 studies aimed at exploring explanations for the clear inverse correlation between reports of wellbeing and materialism (p. 29). Included is an overview of studies suggesting methodological weaknesses in the correlation research (the scale causes the results), revealing that multiple operationalisms of materialism all indicate an inverse relation between materialism and SWB (p. 35). Through these and related contributions, the authors create a strong presumption in support of their key claims and an allied burden of proof for those who seek to dismiss the books central thesis. While companies that market to children will no doubt continue to routinely hire child psychologists to play a central role in their marketing campaigns (p. 224), the American Psychological Associations courageous decision to publish this volume signals the beginning of a new, vital and deeply promising era. In Kanner and Soules words, rising to this call will take vision and courage (p. 63). Embodying both these virtues, this volume fulfills its editors published promise and contributes valuably to the academys most noble pursuits.

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Josina M. Makau, Professor and Co-Coordinator, Program in Practical and Professional Ethics, Department of Philosophy, Pre-Law, and Peace Studies, Building 2, California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, California 93955, USA. Email: Josina_makau@csumb.edu

Book reviews 615 Values, education and the human world J. Haldane (Ed.), 2004 Exeter, UK, Imprint Academic 17.95, $29.90 (pbk), 250 pp. ISBN 1-84540-000-3

For all intents and purposes, this distinguished collection of essays is the publication of the Victor Cook Memorial Lectures on values education. The lectures were held annually under the auspices of the St. Andrews Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs from 1992 to 1998 at various locations in the UK. They are situated lectures without ever being parochial, situated, more specifically, in the current intellectual and, to a lesser degree, political context of contemporary Britain. John Haldane, the Centres director, the present books editor and the lecture series organizer, identified four broad sub-themes connected with values education culture, the state, religion and science and was able to recruit a set of contributors who are at once public figures, in possession of outstanding intellectual credentials and uniquely placed to have something of broad public appeal to say on their respective topics. That, at any rate, seems to have been the idea. In his introduction to the volume, Haldane indicates that, beyond the request to address education, values and one of the sub-themes, the authors were given a free hand to pursue their interests. It shows. Succumbing to a regrettable tendency in the philosophy of education generally, in Johnathan Sackss and Bryan Appelyards lectures even education appears as an afterthought. In Mary Midgleys lecture it is a pair of thin bookends. This is not to say that these essays do not draw attention to matters that might be of great interest and even urgency for educators. But the truth is that this book contains not five categories of essays but two: those which are directly educational and those which treat the more distant concerns of meta-ethics. Whether by chance or by design, this division is reflected in the opening essays. Not present in the original lecture series itself, the texts by John Haldane and David Carr are intended as an accessible introduction to help the reader locate the issues raised in the lectures within a more general perspective on the basic philosophical problems of values and values education. The metaethical essay is Haldanes and here we hear for the first time about how in the early modern period the replacement of a teleological view of nature by an atomistic metaphysics set western intellectual culture on the road to the present situation where the notion of objective values is widely perceived as a contradiction in terms. If it is true, as both he and Carr very plausibly contend, that genuine education in moral and social values can only remain a possibility if values continue to be viewed as potentially true or false in some substantial or objective sense (p. 27) then the problem facing values education is a deep one indeed. Big problems call for big solutions and Haldane floats the idea that a way out of the impasse is by way of an account of values that is both realist and compatible with the modern empiricist world view. The building blocks for such an account, he says, are Aristotles ethics. Carrs text builds on Haldanes by showing how some of the interconnected epistemological and metaphysical axioms of the modern worldview play

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themselves out in competing conceptions of values education. As a means of avoiding the reductive instrumentalism and relativism of progressivism, on one hand, and the immanent threat of indoctrination present in traditionalism, on the other, Carr seems to cautiously endorse a view of values education he calls liberal traditionalism: the reinterpretation of a traditionalist culture initiation view of education in terms of something like liberal democratic ideals and principles of open inquiry and freedom of thought and opinion (p. 21). Carr is not, however, optimistic. The pervasiveness of subjectivism made plain by Haldane renders a disastrous conceptual confusion between the claim (i) that everyone has a right to her own opinion about questions of value and (ii) there is ex hypothesi no correct answer to values questions two apparently similar but distinct claims all but inevitable. The remaining metaethical lectures rehearse roughly the same narrative central to Haldanes piece, and, arguably, they differ from one another more in their proposed means of escape from the Weberian iron cage in which values education is presently imprisoned than in their respective accounts of the structure of the cage itself. Stewart Sutherland and Mary Midgely execute variations on the anti-foundationalist theme. After observing that education is built on a common consensus on aims, Sutherland proceeds to point out that three of the most distinctive features of contemporary society scientific and professional hyper-specialization, individualism and cultural pluralism stand formidably in the way of such agreement. He sees hope in a process of deep collective reflection aimed at developing a naturalistic social vision on what it is for human beings to flourish and the implications of that for setting goals and purposes (p. 215). Midgleys lectures attack the received idea that the natural sciences and the humanities are distinct intellectual essences. Her reading of the early Epicurean arguments for atomism and a sketch of a parallel case made in the early modern period to conceive of nature in mechanistic terms are intended to illustrate how these metaphysical developments the backbone, of course, of the systematic study of nature were animated by irreducibly evaluative concerns about the social ravages being wreaked upon societies in the ideological grip of religion and tradition. An alternative solution to the anti-foundationalist answer to value educations big metaphysical problems is perceptible in Anthony OHears and Bryan Appleyards lectures: the noble lie. OHear has in effect constructed an argument for a traditionalist view of values education which draws on Charles Taylors idea that being a self in the modern sense presupposes orientation vis-a `-vis higher values. Critically, such secondorder values are somewhat paradoxically both cultural artefacts in their very essence, yet necessarily perceived as having objective worth, not as mere personal or collective preferences. The traditional didactic conception of education as initiation into the best of what has been thought and said, and where values education is woven into the very curricular fabric, services the emergence of the self by giving it a moral language. Appleyard comes across as wanting to cover both bases. Like Midgely, Appleyard challenges the view of science as an intellectual citadel. He regards much of the contemporary obscurantism surrounding science, cultivated by scientists and nonscientists alike, as a shameful abnegation of the sciences original vocation as an instrument of social progress. He suggests that a first step towards overcoming this is to reject the reductivist view of human beings as being nothing but a few bones and a tub

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of guts (p. 263). On the face of it, this is an anti-foundationalist proposition but then he goes on to claim that education can play a role in combating reductivism by teaching the possibility of inherent value rather than the value of mere progress (p. 276). What this requires, he says, is taking a difficult metaphysical step in a world that is resolutely antimetaphysical (p. 267). Is this the noble lie? Only Jonathan Sacks seems positively resigned to humanitys slow descent into nihilism. Intriguingly, Sacks proposes to retell the long social and political history of the West as the story of a struggle to arrive at a balance between the conception of man as a political animal, as in the Hellenic tradition, and man as a social animal, as in the Hebraic tradition. The political conception is in the ascendancy, in Sackss reading of the situation, and when it finally triumphs political mans cruellest realization will be that for no-one does he hold unconditional worth. A world without moral bonds, of freefloating attachments, is one in which we are essentially replaceable (p. 190). But this, Sacks says, is a stage in the story we have not yet reached (p. 190). The directly educational essays in this book are more miscellaneous. Anthony Quinton makes the alarming suggestion that western culture is about to enter a cultural dark age. The blame is laid on a malign intellectual influence blowing in from the Continent which is positively antithetical to the notion that education can legitimately be concerned with initiating young people into what has been best thought and best said, as he restates Arnolds famous expression. However sympathetic one might be with Quintons viewpoint, it is hard to avoid the impression that, if Foucault, Derrida and others really are as silly and meaningless as he depicts them as being, it will all blow over eventually. Pring, in explicit confrontation with Quinton and OHears lectures, takes both of them to task for defending the high-altar conception of education and its policy implications. OHear, indeed, speaks in flattering terms of France, Germany and now Scotlands multitrack school leaving certificates. The force of Prings piece is his convincing dismantlement of a set of pervasive dichotomies in education between thinking and doing, theory and practice and education and work. It is these dualisms, as he calls them, which enable the idea that there needs to be education for some and training for the rest. Going against the grain, Mary Warnock expresses her general approval of the educational reforms in Britain since the late 1970s and her first purpose is to trace out these changes. The national curriculum is an important tool for meeting the basic educational needs of British children, she argues. But she sees an overvaluation of freedom in the right obtained by schools under the leadership of parents to opt out of the local educational authorities where they feel a school is underperforming. This policy undermines the singular competence of local authorities to provide for the needs of disadvantaged children. Warnock then celebrates the renewed appreciation for the role of good teaching in meeting educational needs by describing the qualities of a good teacher. It is an attractive ideal but too demanding to be of much concrete help in professional formation, as it is ostensibly intended.

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Dr Bruce Maxwell, Institut fu r Allgemeine Erziehungswissenschaft (I), Westfa lische Wilhelms-Universita t Mu nster, Georgskommende 26, 48143 Mu nster, Germany. Email: maxwellb@uni-muenster.de